Speaker and OK Policy Staff Bios

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Rep. Scott Inman

Panelist: Oklahoma’s Fiscal Challenges

Rep. Scott Inman was first elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in November of 2006 and is currently serving his fourth term. Rep. Inman was born and raised in Del City, OK. He attended the University of Oklahoma, where he graduated in 2001 Summa Cum Laude with a degree in political science with a Spanish minor. Rep. Inman also attended the University of Oklahoma School of Law, where he received his juris doctor in 2004. Upon graduating from law school, Rep. Inman practiced law with a firm in downtown Oklahoma City. When State House District 94 became vacant in the spring of 2006, Rep. Inman decided to put his law practice on hold and run for office. Upon his election in the fall of 2006, Rep. Inman became the first graduate of Del City High School to ever serve the city of Del City at the State Capitol in its more than 60-year history. And in May of 2009, Scott was elected to serve as Leader of the House Democratic Caucus. When elected Leader at the age of 32, Scott became the youngest person in state history to ever lead a caucus in the House or Senate. Rep. Inman married his high school sweetheart, Dessa, and the couple has two daughters, Ella Grace and Sophia Claire.

Rev. Jeff Jaynes

Panelist: What do we do to move people out of poverty?

Rev. Jeff Jaynes has a passion for his hometown of Tulsa and its people, especially those in need. He attended Georgetown University, majoring in Government and Theology, and worked in local and national politics before completing a Master’s of Divinity from Duke University. In 2006, he became the pastor of Southern Hills UMC in Tulsa where he served until 2011 when he was named Executive Director of Restore Hope Ministries, an agency dedicated to fighting poverty and promoting hope. Jeff and his wife Adriane are proud parents of two sons. They are big fans of travel, sports, and the arts.

Danne Johnson

Presenter: ‘Gender’

Danne Johnson is the Constance Baker Motley Professor of Law at Oklahoma City University. She is engaged in

research and writing that involves the intersection of race, gender, and the law. Johnson is engaged in a host of civic and charitable endeavors. She serves on the board of the YWCA and several other organizations. She is a wife and mother of two. Johnson believes in genius and philanthropy.

Shiloh Kantz

Program Coordinator; Director of Operations and Development, OK Policy

Shiloh joined OK Policy in February of 2010. She is a wife and mother of three children: Grantham, Ethan and Delilah. Prior to joining OK Policy, she worked as a controller and office manager for an Oklahoma small business group. Her work at OK Policy has further attuned her to what is happening in our state and fostered a drive to play a more active part in it. Before joining the staff, she felt she was a suburban wife and mother who had no interest in state government because it did not affect her. She now realizes state government affects all residents, big and small, old and young.

Ryan Kiesel

Panelist: Oklahoma Campaigns and Elections

Ryan Kiesel served three terms in the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 2004 to 2010. During his time in the legislature, Kiesel held various leadership roles and often led the fight against efforts to curb reproductive rights and trample civil liberties. In addition to his service in the legislature, Ryan has filled key roles on local, state and national campaigns. Ryan continues to write and speak on a wide range of political and legal issues, and has been cited by local and national media outlets. Prior to joining the staff of the ACLU of Oklahoma, Kiesel was in private practice with a law firm in Oklahoma City. Ryan also taught a seminar, Politics and the Law, as an adjunct professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Ryan received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Oklahoma and a J.D. from the University of Oklahoma College of Law.

Sheryl Lovelady

Panelist: Oklahoma Campaigns and Elections

Sheryl Lovelady is the Executive Director of Oklahoma Afterschool Network, a statewide education nonprofit that focuses on expanded learning opportunities and workforce development for Oklahoma children and youth. Sheryl began her career as a professional photographer before entering the political and government sectors. She served on the executive staffs of the Oklahoma Senate Appropriations Chairman and Senate President Pro Tempore and was Executive Director of a statewide legislative caucus organization. In this capacity, she provided oversight of fundraising, campaign and policy strategies for majority members of the Oklahoma Senate. She has also worked with clientele throughout the United States as a strategic consultant with a Washington DC-and Florida-based public opinion research firm. She served as Director of Communications for the City of Tulsa, and more recently as Director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Carl Albert Congressional Research Center at the University of Oklahoma.

Lovelady is President of Lovelady and Associates, LLC, a media and public policy consulting firm that works with nonprofit and private sector clientele. She is a graduate of Leadership Tulsa, the Department of Corrections Leadership Academy and the US Department of Defense JCOC leadership program. She is President of the Gordon Cooper Technology Center Foundation and serves on the advisory board of the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women. She serves on the Board of Directors of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum, the ACLU of Oklahoma and the Center for the Advancement of Science and Math Education in Oklahoma, and a gubernatorial appointee to the Oklahoma Community Service Commission. Sheryl is a political analyst and frequent guest on OETA television.

Dr. Anthony Marshall

Panelist: Education

Anthony Marshall is in his 11th year as a history teacher at Booker T. Washington High School, where he is responsible for the development of the Hornet Ambassador Program and the Men of Power male achievement program. He is active in the community and has received the Omega Psi Phi Community Service Award. Marshall also developed the Summer Reading Program for incoming freshmen in which more than 200 students participate. He encourages students to continue their education by helping them with potential scholarship opportunities and conducting an annual college tour for students. Marshall also coordinates Booker T.’s Louder Than A Bomb poetry team, which has won the local contest and competed at the national competition in Chicago. With an education in law, he sponsors the Pipeline Project which introduces Tulsa Public Schools students to law and the requirements for entry to law school. He was recently appointed to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Teacher Advisory Council.

Kara Joy McKee

Moderator: Careers in Public Policy; Presenter: ‘Grass Roots Advocacy’; Outreach Specialist, OK Policy

Kara Joy joined OK Policy in December of 2013. She is a native Oklahoman and an OU graduate. She has been active for years with the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, Oklahoma Sustainability Network, and other community projects, and in 2011 she was honored with the City of Norman’s Human Rights Award. In addition to her efforts to inform and motivate the state as an OK Policy Outreach Specialist, Kara Joy is serves on the board of Kendall Whittier, Inc., a Tulsa neighborhood nonprofit.

Rob Miller

Panelist: Education

Rob Miller is assistant superintendent of human resources and administration at Sand Springs Public Schools. Prior to coming to Sand Springs this year, Miller was principal of Jenks Middle School for eleven years. He has an M.S. degree in Education Leadership and a B.S. degree in Geology. He has been in public education for 20 years, following ten years as an artillery officer in the United States Marine Corps. As a teacher, he was twice selected as a site Teacher of the Year and was the Jenks Public School Teacher of the Year in 1999. In addition to his selection as the 2015 Oklahoma Middle School Principal of the Year, Rob was also selected as the 2014 Recipient of the Advocate for Academic Freedom Award from the Oklahoma Education Association. He writes a popular blog about Oklahoma education issues at www.viewfromtheedge.net.

Sen. Angela Monson

Panelist: Health Care in Oklahoma

Angela Monson has been engaged in activities related to health care policy for more than 30 years. She is currently employed by the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center as Associate Provost for Community Partnerships and Health Policy and is responsible to the Provost and Senior Vice President of the Health Sciences Center. She also serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.

Monson is a member of the OU Medical Center (Hospital) Board of Trustees and previously served as a member of the Oklahoma City/County Board of Health. She also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Families USA, a national consumer health advocacy organization, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Health Policy Development, the parent entity of the National Academy for State Health Policy.

Monson was a member of the Oklahoma State Senate from 1993 until November, 2005 and the Oklahoma House of Representatives from November 1990 until her election to the State Senate. As a member of the State Senate, Monson served as First Assistant Majority Floor Leader, Chair of the Senate Education Committee, Chair of the Finance Committee, Chair of the Appropriations Sub-committee on Group Health and Employee Benefits and Appropriations Vice-Chair of the Sub-Committee on Health and Social Services. During her tenure in the Legislature, she was the primary sponsor of many critical bills now law, including mobile phone 911 access, ad valorem tax reform, early voting, mental health parity, and was also one of the chief architects of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, the state’s Medicaid agency.

Sen. Monson is a past president of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), and also served as chair of the NCSL Health Committee and as a member of the NSCL Executive Committee. During her tenure as Health Committee Chair, Monson was instrumental in developing the Conference’s position and actions on the Tobacco Settlement between the states’ attorneys general and the tobacco companies. Monson has also testified before Congressional Committees on various topics including Medicaid and the Medicare Part D prescription drug program. She was also a member of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators Executive Committee. In February, 2009, Monson was elected Chairperson of the Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education and served one four year term in that district-wide elected position.

A graduate of Oklahoma City University, Monson earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Corrections from that institution and also received a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Oklahoma at Norman. She is also a graduate of Douglass High School in the Oklahoma City Public Schools District.

Angela is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at both Oklahoma City University and the University of Oklahoma. She remains very active in her community and her church, the Voice of Praise Baptist Church.

Rev. Christy Moore

Panelist: Hunger in Oklahoma

Rev. Christy Moore is the Founding CEO of StoneSoup Community Venture, a non-profit with a mission to establish food justice projects that empower people to move from situations of dependency to autonomy. With a strong belief that the fundamental need for food necessitates an advocacy for the declaration of food as a basic human right, StoneSoup Community Venture creates pathways of access, equity, rights and participation for all people at the intersections of garden, food and table. Christy has served across her lifespan as a Parent Educator for Parents as Teachers, School-Based Case Manager for Big Brothers and Sisters of Oklahoma, Academic Advisor for Tulsa Community College, Coordinator of Caregiver Support at LIFE Senior Services, and Director of Family and Older Adult Ministries at First Christian Church, Tulsa. Christy earned her Master’s of Divinity at Phillips Theological Seminary and most recently received the Point of Light Award from Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry. Her work has been featured in Oklahoma Today, The Tulsa World, and LIFE’s Vintage Newsmagazine.

Curtis Munoz

Panelist: Who Owns the Water?

Curtis Munoz is the Environmental Director at Kiowa Tribe. He protects Kiowa Tribal land, water, and air from environmental impacts and contamination by administering federal grants awarded to the tribe in areas of environmental protection and regulation of, ecosystem balance, and natural resources. Munoz is also the EPA Region 6 National Tribal Science Council member. He has previously served on the EPA: Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee.

First and foremost Munoz is a Native American with strong spiritual ties and convictions. He is also a western educated scientist with Native traditional science viewpoints that give him a broad spectrum of knowledge in the sciences. His goal is to raise the standard of science awareness, specifically in the area of environmental science, while encouraging Native and Indian youth to consider the sciences as a future career, benefiting all tribes and Native Nations.

Supt. Robert Neu

Panelist: Education

Rob began serving as Oklahoma City Public School Superintendent in July 2014. He is the chief instructional and operational officer of a highly diverse district of 46,000 students, 89 schools and more than 5,000 dedicated staff members. Prior to his present position, he served as Superintendent of Schools in Federal Way, Washington, a multi-cultural district of 23,000 students. He successfully led bold education reform initiatives in equity, policy development, standards-based education and global learning. Rob has served on the Superintendents Council of the College Board, and the Governing Board of the Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN) out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a consulting member of the Education Research Development Institute and was president-elect of the Michigan Coaches Basketball Association. Rob holds a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in

Business Education from Eastern Michigan University; a Master’s Degree in Secondary School Administration from Central Michigan University; and an Education Specialist Degree from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Rob is married to his wife of 24 years, Kelly, and they have six children ranging in age from 9 to 18 years old.

Tyler Parette

Operations Assistant, OK Policy

Tyler Parette is the Operations Assistant at Oklahoma Policy Institute. He graduated in April with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from Oklahoma Christian University. A native of Oklahoma, Tyler grew up in Coweta and graduated from Lincoln Christian High School in Tulsa. Tyler is well-traveled and has spent semesters abroad studying in Vienna, Austria and Oxford, England. At Oxford, he was a member of Wycliffe Hall College, where he pursued a primary tutorial in International Relations and a secondary tutorial in Theology.

Tyler participated in the Summer Policy Institute in 2013, served as a Summer Intern at OK Policy in 2014, and worked as the Legislative Liaison Intern for OK Policy in the spring of 2015. Tyler spends his weekends working as a guide at the Post Oak Canopy Tour.

Bailey Perkins

Panelist: Careers in Public Policy

Bailey Perkins is a 25 year-old native of Lawton, Oklahoma. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Oklahoma City University and a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Oklahoma. During her time in graduate school, she worked as a graduate assistant for the Carl Albert Center Women’s Leadership Initiative. She is also an alumna of the Future Women in Government program, past board member and advocacy chairman of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, and Southern Education Foundation Summer Fellow. The Oklahoma Policy Institute has a special place in her heart because she was part of the first research fellowship cohort and participated in the inaugural Summer Policy Institute. She’s now entering the second year of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities two-year State Policy fellowship program. Through the fellowship, she works for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, where she researches, analyzes, and advocates for education and fiscal policies that help low-and moderate-income families in Arkansas.

Gene Perry

Panelist: Careers in Public Policy; Presenter: ‘Research Tips, Advanced Googling, Finding & Using Data’, ‘Infographics’, ‘Education Issues’; Policy Director, OK Policy

Gene joined OK Policy in January 2011. He is a native Oklahoman and has an M.A. in journalism and a B.A. in history from the University of Oklahoma. At OK Policy, Gene supervises policy staff and helps to identify policy priorities for the organization. He also prepares the daily news update, In The Know, in addition to researching and writing about tax and budget, education, criminal justice, and energy policies. Gene serves on the board of the Oklahoma Sustainability Network.

Carly Putnam

Presenter: ‘Set up to Fail: Barriers to exiting poverty’, ‘Oklahoma’s Health Landscape’; Policy Analyst, OK Policy

Carly joined OK Policy as a full-time policy analyst in January of 2014. She previously worked as an OK Policy intern. A Kansas City native, Carly graduated from the University of Tulsa in December 2013 with a BA in Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies. She was a leader in several TU organizations active in feminist, LGBTQ, and anti-racist education and advocacy. She is a graduate of the National Education of Women (NEW) Leadership Institute, worked as an editor for the campus newspaper, tutored students at Will Rogers High School, and interned with Planned Parenthood. With Gene Perry, she compiles In The Know, a daily news update. Her work at OK Policy focuses on healthcare, poverty, inequality, and race and gender.

John Redman

Presenter: ‘The Promise Zone’

John is a native of Antlers, OK and is a graduate of the Antlers Public School system. John later attended Eastern Oklahoma State College and Oklahoma State University, graduating with degrees in forestry and agricultural economics. His career with USDA Farmers Home Administration began in 1985, with work in both the farm lending and rural home lending programs throughout eastern Oklahoma. In the mid 1990s, due to agency restricting and realignment, Rural Development was established. His role has since been to deliver rural water and environmental programs, rural business and cooperative programs, and is now assigned to community facilities program delivery at the Atoka USDA Rural Development office, which serves 18 counties in the southeast quadrant of Oklahoma. John was recently assigned as the local USDA Federal Promise Zone Liaison for the President’s Promise Zone Initiative serving Choctaw Nation and southeastern Oklahoma. John remains active with his family ranching operation in Antlers, and resides in Durant, Oklahoma with his wife, Emily, and their two boys. They are members of the First Christian Church.

Joshua Riley

Presenter: ‘The Promise Zone’

Joshua Riley is a 26 year-old father of two, and member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He received an undergraduate degree in education from Southeastern Oklahoma State University. After graduation, he served as a School of Choctaw Language instructor for two years. In May of 2015, he graduated from the University Of Tulsa College Of Law with a master’s degree in Indian Law. Currently, Josh works in the Legislative Advocacy Department for the Choctaw Nation, where he monitors and tracks legislation with implications for Indian Country. In his spare time, he enjoys the outdoors, particularly hunting and fishing. Josh is a member of the Choctaw Nation employee dance troupe, the Tvshka Homma Stomp ground, and Team Captain of the Choctaw Nation Stickball team, Tvshka Homma.

Dr. Cynthia Rogers

Panelist: Oklahoma’s Fiscal Challenges

Cynthia Rogers is a co-chair of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network and a Professor of Economics at the University of Oklahoma where she served as the Graduate Director from 2006-2013. She earned a BA in economics from Kent State University and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pittsburgh.

Prior to joining the University of Oklahoma, Rogers worked for the Regional Research Institute at West Virginia University, where she was program coordinator and research mentor for the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates in Regional Science. She has done consulting work for various agencies, including the Oklahoma Office of State Finance, Oklahoma Department of Transportation, Tennessee Valley Authority, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Rogers’ research focuses on state and local public finance and economic development, with a special focus on methodological concerns that arise when evaluating the impact of public tax and expenditure policies. She has published more than 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, National Tax Journal, and Regional Science and Urban Economics, among others, and currently

serves on the editorial boards of the Review of Regional Studies and the Journal of Urban Affairs.